can cure him of it, as Ibn Mas‘ūd said. Another kind is a disease of religion: newly introduced speculative theology. Another brings about the destruction of religion: knowledge of sorcery and the like.”

Thus, health is preserved through what is akin to it, and illness is removed through its opposite. This applies both to physical ailments of the body and to ailments of the heart concerning the soul, religion, and the revealed Law. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“Every child is born upon the natural disposition. Then his parents make him a Jew, a Christian, or a Magian, just as an animal gives birth to an animal with all its limbs intact. Do you see any among them born mutilated?”

Abū Hurayra would then say: “Recite, if you wish: ‘The natural disposition Allah has instilled in mankind.’”

It is recorded in the two Sahīh collections. Allah Most High says:

“To Him belongs whoever is in the heavens and the earth; all are devoutly obedient to Him.”

“And He is the One who originates creation, then repeats it, and that is easier for Him. His is the highest description in the heavens and the earth.”

Further on, He says:

“Rather, the wrongdoers follow their desires without knowledge.”

And further on:

“So set your face towards the religion, inclining to truth—the natural disposition Allah has instilled in mankind. There is no altering Allah’s creation. That is the upright religion, but most people do not know.”

He thus tells us that He created His servants with an innate disposition to turn their faces towards the religion, inclining to truth—that is, to worship Allah alone, without any partner. This is among the heart’s innate, natural, upright, and balanced inclinations. Abandoning it is a tremendous wrong, whose perpetrators follow their desires without knowledge. This innate disposition and constitution—which is a sound constitution—must have sustenance and nourishment to replenish it with knowledge and action akin to those with which it was naturally endowed.

Thus, religion reaches completion through the innate disposition being perfected by the revealed Law. This Law is Allah’s banquet, as the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said in the hadith of Ibn Mas‘ūd:

“Indeed, every host wishes that